Friday, October 25, 2013

Hot Water Treatment for disease prevention at planting time

I am spending a lot of time in the bathroom these days! Specifically- soaking bags full of garlic cloves to get them ready to plant. I use my bathtub to do the hot water treatment on my garlic before I plant.

The hot water treatment kills the Garlic Bloat nematodes that I have found in some of my garlic. It also helps prevent spreading white rot. Last year it also seemed to help with garlic "cankers". These are soft brown spots on some of my cloves that make a bulb unsellable. The treated garlic didn't have cankers this year.

Here are the instructions that I successfully used last year and am using again:

There are usually four steps involved in hot water treatment of garlic cloves:
1. Pre-soak bath - Soak in water maintained at 100°F/38°C for 30-45 minutes. This
activates the nematodes in the clove and makes them more susceptible to the
heat treatment. It also pre-warms the cloves so that the temperature of the hot-
water bath is easier to maintain.

2. Hot-water bath – Take the cloves immediately from the pre-soak and put them in
a 120°F/49°C hot-water bath. Maintain this bath at 120°F/49°C for 20 minutes.
The temperature of the hot-water bath will fall when the cloves are added. You
need a system to quickly raise the temperature to 120°F/49°C without hot spots.
Start timing when the temperature is stable at 120°F/49°C.

The volume of water compared to the volume of the cloves is important. If there
is too little water, the temperature will drop significantly when the cloves are
added. Usually a ratio of 4-5 parts water to 1 part cloves is recommended.

3. Cool bath – Immediately submerse the cloves in a cool water bath for 10-20
minutes at 64-72°F/18-22°C. For very small lots running water can be used. Do
not use ice water as it is too cold.

4. Drying - Dry the cloves and plant within a week of treatment. Do not try to store
treated cloves. These baths while reducing the nematode population, may
increase decay due to fungi especially if the seed is not dried and planted shortly
after treatment.

WARNING – Accurate time and temperature controls are required to successfully heat
treat garlic cloves! One to two degrees Fahrenheit can make a difference. Too high a
temperature or too long an exposure may injure or kill the garlic tissue, while too low a
temperature or too short an exposure may not kill the nematodes.

Karen's notes: This wasn't too hard once I got the hang of it. The key is using a good thermometer. I used a garden one that I dangled in the water using the holes of an old cheese grater to prop it up. (My thermometer is not submersible.) The cheese grater is layed on top of a heavy crock full of hot water so that it won't float around the tub or tip over.

Contacting WeeBee Farms

WeeBee Farms is a very small farm and is not set up for visitors, or farm tours at this point. Also, I am not big on email, due to lack of time and lack of patience with sitting in front of a computer. Generally, coming to see me on Saturday at the markets is the best way to reach me. When market is over for me in October, I am all sold out- unless I post otherwise on my blog. I have many requests to ship garlic during the season- but we don't ship since I sell out at market every year. If you need to reach me by email here is the address- weebeefarms@gmail.com

WeeBee Farms - Are we organic?

At the farmer's market, we are not allowed to call ourselves organic because we are not certified organic. However, we have been growing by organic standards since 1996. Our garlic fields have not had any chemicals since 1993 when we moved here.Garlic in the field- we enrich the soil with cover crops including buckwheat, rye, wheat, oats, peas, millet and sorghum. Every other year the garlic field is "fallow" and planted with these crops. We also till in some composted llama manure 3 weeks before planting. All garlic "seed" is organically grown. No pesticides or herbicides are ever used. No chemicals at all are used. We use organic seed for our cover crops to avoid pesticide residue that may harm pollinators. We have honey bees on the farm and are very conscious of the effects of the newer long-lasting neonicitinoid class of pesticide.Plants for sale in Spring- For seed starting we start with organic potting soil, mixed with worm castings for good bacteria. When potting up we add in our garden compost or llama/ goat compost. The seeds we buy are mostly organic, with very few exceptions. (Many certified organic growers don't use organic seeds, so it's always good to ask.) We never use Genetically modified seeds or treated seeds or even non-gmo seeds owned by Monsanto. For fertilizer we mostly rely on our homemade compost. Also we use worm castings for our pepper and tomato plants that we test for herbicide residue first, and sometimes our own compost tea.For our compost we use only manure from our own animals which have been fed hay with no herbicide or pesticides, and organic food scraps and other organic feed. This is to avoid any residual contamination from long- lasting herbicides that could harm the plants and long-lasting pesticides that could harm the pollinators that gather pollen from the plants.